


Revery

by cynical21



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-19
Updated: 2014-08-19
Packaged: 2018-02-13 20:39:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2164425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cynical21/pseuds/cynical21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thoughts of the apprentice as the flames consume his Master</p>
            </blockquote>





	Revery

It's very late now - so late that even the nightbirds have given up their attempt to flood the darkness with the liquid purity of their song and retired to their nests. The only sounds are the muted rush of the falls, reduced by distance to little more than a soothing whisper, and the occasional voice of the fire - very occasional now, as there is little left to burn.

The mourners drifted away slowly as the evening drew towards the depth of night, most pausing for a moment as they approached me, to try to communicate their feelings, but few spoke at all, preferring instead to simply clasp my hand or, once or twice, to lay a hand on my shoulder. I can't blame them for their reticence; it is difficult to know what to say to one who wraps himself in a cloak of detachment and deflects all attempts to express sympathy or understanding.

Detachment is what was always expected, and it is what I will continue to practice. It is all I have left to give you.

Only the boy remains now, as the witching hour draws near, and he has succumbed to the natural weariness of youth and sleeps, snoring slightly, wrapped in the warmth of my robe. The air here is rich with moisture and lies chill on my skin, but it is of no importance. I have slept, wrapped in little more than the warmth of my convictions, in the ice caves of Hoth; the momentary shiver engendered by the night winds of Naboo is beneath my notice.

Ashes - I can taste them at the back of my throat, bitter and acrid and oily, somehow. The legacy of my life.

All that remains - of you.

My Master. He who guided me and molded me and pushed me and trained me and made me what I am.

My Master. Reduced to ash, and I can't conceive of how this is possible. You were ever larger than life - filled with fire, expanded with passion. How is it that you could be here at one moment and gone the next, and the only residue lies here, inside me, in the form of a little, lost child, wandering in the darkness?

A child you never knew.

For I learned my lesson well, my Master - learned it at your knee, even when you didn't realize you were teaching. Learned it when you rejected me as your padawan, only to recant later, out of a sense of obligation. The boy, after all, had just saved your life; it would have been very bad form to simply reject him again, out of hand.

Much better, then, to capitulate - to give him what he wanted and wait for the right moment to take back what you had given, and leave him as you should have left him so long ago.

What did I learn?

That for all your fire and passion, Master, you had none left to give me, and I had nothing within me to inspire it. I was not Xanatos; Xanatos of the laughing eyes, and the beautiful face; Xanatos, with his flights of fancy and his moments of inspiration; Xanatos, who defined passion.

Long before I stepped into your world, you gave him your heart, and, when you were forced to destroy him, you nevertheless allowed him to keep it. Even if he had lived, Master, I would never have stood a chance of defeating him and winning it back; he was the hawk, soaring and incredibly powerful. I was the drab little nestling, fearful to spread my wings beyond your shadow.

And, of course, he didn't live. Even harder than fighting the hawk is battling the ghost of the hawk, who is, of course, impervious to change - eternal, untouchable, forever young.

So I did what I knew I must do, Master, to remain at your side, to hold on to the dream that was all I possessed. I became what you needed and wanted me to be.

And if I spent the nights of my childhood swallowing the tears that I knew would only serve to annoy you, I accepted it as the price I must pay.

Obi-Wan - the steady one, the faithful one, the reliable one. Obi-Wan, who lacked fire and passion and imagination and inspiration, but who was always there, right where you needed him to be.

I doubt you would remember, my Master, all the moments that reside forever within my memory, frozen and changeless and more painful than the shrill agony of a buried blade.

But I am doomed to remember them, to be unable to forget them.

Remember Fis Morpha, Master? The planet in the Duralia system where a climactic disaster erupted and killed thousands of people in a matter of hours. Remember that we were sent there, with several other Jedi teams, to aid in the retrieval and disposal of bodies, to prevent the spread of disease among the remainder of the population.

We stood there, on a hillside looking down at such total devastation that my mind couldn't seem to grasp it. Bodies were everywhere, like some macabre portrait of the afterlife. Sprawled in the indignity of death, humanoid, young and old, male and female - it defied understanding.

Do you remember what you said to Master Windu when he remarked that perhaps it would be better that the padawans returned to the transport, that they shouldn't have to face something like this?

You said, "Of course. We'll send Bant and Garen and Ciara back to the ship. But Obi-Wan will stay with us. He won't give in to flights of imagination; he'll be fine."

Even Master Windu looked at you strangely then, but, of course, he didn't question your judgment. Such questions are never raised when it comes to a Master's assessment of his padawan's capabilities.

I saw Ciara's face as the rest of the apprentices were herded back to the transport, and I think she knew the truth. Gods know, she saw it often enough, although it was never verbalized. Still, I think she knew, and I think she cried for me that day.

But there was no time for heartbreak or for misgivings. We went down into that village, and, throughout that long, interminable day, I lifted and carried the bodies of men and woman, and children - so many children - and laid them on the funeral pyre that became a mountain as the day wore on.

There were no tears on my face - no hesitation in my manner - and if, somewhere within me, there was a child who was screaming in need and weeping in horror and gibbering with a craving for some tiny gesture of reassurance, that remained my secret.

I was what you needed me to be.

Obi-Wan - the steady one, the reliable one, the controlled one.

And when the day finally ended and I looked to you for instruction, you were distracted, as usual, and said, "That's enough for now, Padawan. Find yourself something to eat and a place to rest."

And dismissed me from your thoughts.

I wonder now, if you had reached out through our bond, if you would have noticed that I did not eat that night - nor rest. That I ran from that death camp out into the hills, ran until I could run no more and then collapsed into a fetal curl as I heaved so violently that I was sure I would expel the lining of my stomach.

But you didn't reach for me, of course, and I lay there, soiled and trembling, consumed with crushing anguish, until the first blush of pre-dawn touched me; then I rose and dragged myself back to the scene of bleak horror, to face another day.

I was sixteen years old.

I think now of all the little remarks that I overheard over the course of the years, and I wonder if I was, perhaps, meant to hear them. And, if so, were they meant to hurt or only to help me to accept my limitations?

I find that I can't decide, and that it probably doesn't matter anyway.

All the conversations between you and other Masters, exchanging comments about your respective padawans.

Shall I quote them for you, Master? For you may be sure I remember them all.

"Obi-Wan is competent. He will become a capable knight."

"Obi-Wan is not inclined to flights of imagination. He is very grounded."

"Obi-Wan is not inspired, but he is adequate."

"Obi-Wan is not troubled with passion; he is blessed with good control."

"Obi-Wan is very focused."

You never actually said the rest of it, of course, but I heard it nevertheless. "Obi-Wan does not inspire love or affection or pride, but it is convenient to have him around. He serves me well enough."

I think back now to that fatal moment, when the Sith was defeated and I gathered you in my arms. And I'm somewhat shocked to realize that, somewhere in our shared past, I had scripted that scene - had imagined it in such exquisite detail that it seems almost impossible that what I wrote was not what happened.

I had imagined, you see, that, in that last instant, as you trembled on the cusp of infinity - there would come an epiphany, a recognition of what had been there before you for all these long years - an understanding that the child you had raised was, ultimately, worthy of the love you were never able to give.

It did not happen that way, of course, and, now, it never will. Even in that moment, with your life draining away, you looked through me, and assigned me the next task, the final task.

"Promise me that you will train the boy."

And I did what I have done every day of my life since that fateful moment on Bandomeer. I swallowed the pain and the longing, tucking it into that great emptiness within me - the space that could only have been filled had you found me worthy of your love - and responded as you knew I would.

"Yes, Master."

Knowing full well that you asked, not because you believed I would be inspired to be a great Master, but because you knew I would never break my word. Even if I knew, as you certainly did, that I was not ready.

Just as you knew I was not ready for my trials when you suggested it. It was simply no longer convenient to have me around.

But I will do as you knew I would, my Master. I will train Anakin, and I will deny the dark visions that haunt me, because you taught me that I don't have the necessary gifts to interpret what I see.

I will be the Obi-Wan you created, the one who lacks passion; the one who always does what he should; the one who learned to hide the pain beneath the sardonic wit.

The steady one, who has forgotten how to release his grief with tears; who knows only control, and denial of the love he felt for a man who not only could not return it, but could not even concede that it might exist.

I look down, and am gripped with a sudden sense of wonder.

The steady one, whose hands, somehow, can't seem to stop trembling.

FINIS


End file.
